


In Water, Reflection

by Teyke



Series: Cap-IM Bingo fills [5]
Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-24
Updated: 2016-01-24
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:06:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 568
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841326
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Teyke/pseuds/Teyke
Summary: Shared experiences, decades apart.





	In Water, Reflection

**Author's Note:**

> Originally posted Jan 24, 2016: "Another bingo fill, this time for the ‘water’ square. (I should probably think of a better title.) This one’s MCU."

Water rushes over his face, up his nose, down his throat. He struggles, but it makes no difference. Panic overrides sense and he opens his mouth to scream, and the water rushes in and he’s going to drown—

He wakes up.

Steve finds Tony standing in front of the windows, tumbler of scotch is one hand. There’s nothing on the glass—no projections or schematics—he’s just staring down at the lights of Manhattan, blurry beyond the raindrops spattering the window. It’s a familiar enough scene, from both ends—God knows Tony’s wandered in enough times at 3 AM to find Steve doing the exact same thing, although usually Steve foregoes the Scotch. It’s not like it will get him drunk.

“Hey,” says Steve softly, unwilling to be too loud this late at night. He steps up beside Tony, intending to just wrap an arm around him, but Tony turns and pulls him into a full embrace.

They just stand like that for a while. It’s harder to feel the cold while wrapped in someone else’s arms.

He doesn’t get out of the way in time, and the flailing arm of this week’s mechanical monstrosity sends him bouncing off a car and into a nearby building. For a moment he just lies there, stunned and trying to breathe—he can’t, and it’s not asthma, and certainly not like having an arc reactor carving a hole in his chest, but he got the wind knocked out of him and he. Can’t. Breathe.

This is really dumb, he thinks frantically, trying not to panic. Not like it’s the first time this has happened in a fight, he’ll be fine in a second—he can hear his teammates over the radio, wanting to know just that, and one insistent voice in particular, demanding—

His muscles loosen up and he pulls in a breath so raw that for a moment it’s water rushing down his throat and into his lungs. Then he coughs, long and ragged, and it’s air.

“I’m fine, guys,” he tells his team, and launches himself back into the fight.

In winter everything is wetter. Snow doesn’t stay on the ground long. The Tower lobby displays ‘caution: wet floor’ signs as a permanent fixture.

Tony makes hot chocolate—it’s a sign of how far gone he is over Steve that it’s not coffee—and doctors it liberally, then brings Steve a mug. They stand at the window, watching the city. Below, a car tries to take a corner faster than it should, skids out, and clips another. Steve winces as the horns go off; Tony can’t hear them. The intersection rapidly becomes impassable.

But there’s no villainy here, and nobody’s hurt. They can stay up here, warm and dry.

They’re leaving the hospital after a charity appearance, and a melting icicle drips water right down the back of his collar. He flinches, a shiver down his spine that is only partly due to being startled—

“Okay there?”

“Yeah, fine.”

In the middle of February they get a tip pointing to Buenos Aires. It doesn’t pan out, but Tony insists he needs to stay longer for business anyway. Steve plays along for half a day, and then Tony admits the ruse and they turn it into a proper vacation.

When they return to New York, it’s still cold, but the skies are clear.

“Sometimes I have nightmares.”

“So do I.”


End file.
